The Lonely Honeypot
by sally manda
Summary: There's something lurking in the Summers' kitchen pantry...


"The Lonely Honeypot"  
  
AUTHOR: Sally Manda  
RATING: G  
STATUS: Complete, season 4  
GENRE: Humour  
DISCLAIMER: Apart from Blakus, none of the characters in this story belong to me. They are the property of Joss Whedon and FOX and Mutant Enemy Productions.  
  
  
  
Once upon a time in a small kitchen in Sunnydale, there lived an unhappy honeypot named Blakus. He lived on the second shelf of a dark cupboard and rarely saw the sun. The only time that he was ever moved from inside that cupboard was when the owners of the house were hungry. Then, they would take him out of the cupboard, rip his head off and scoop out his entrails. This was not the honeypot's idea of a good time. In fact, it rated amongst his top five worst experiences, along with being infested with ants and the time that a large possessed rat got into the cupboard and began to gnaw through him.   
  
The honeypot spent a lot of time making lists about things he did not like. In fact, he spent a great deal of his time looking for the negatives. This could be amounted to the fact that he suffered from the stress caused by the lack of sun he got but also to the fact that his very point of existence was to be taken out of the cupboard and have his guts scooped out every now and then.  
  
It is a pity that no one asked Blakus his opinion on things, as he often knew a lot more than you'd expect. As he was a honeypot, people did not pay much attention to him and believing that he was an inanimate object with no intelligence or soul often did the most embarrassing things around him. The anonymity that Blakus achieved by being a honeypot led to him knowing everything that went on in the household.   
  
This household was not a normal, run-of-the-mill household by any means. It was the home of Buffy Summers, a perky teenager who just happened to be a vampire slayer. Blakus could have told you that, but no one ever asked him anything, so he didn't. Anyway, Buffy and her friends, the Slayerettes, spent a lot of time fighting evil and this meant that a lot of strange things did go on in that house.   
  
This is an account of how Blakus became involved in the life of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the amazing adventures he had along the way.  
  
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One evening, Blakus was sitting on the yellow chequered tablecloth of the kitchen table, minding his own business, when the two occupants of the household, Buffy and her mother, walked in. This would not usually disturb the honeypot - walking in into rooms is something that humans often do and shouldn't cause any alarm. However, something about this scene really did disturb Blakus. Maybe it was the spectacle of Buffy and her mother wearing matching black leotards, or the fact that they were both yelling angrily at each other, but something was surely wigging Blake out.  
  
"Mum, I told you joining the Mime Association of Sunnydale was a really bad idea. Not only is it making my chances of being homecoming queen non-existent, these black leotards are really itchy." Buffy began a bout of frenzied scratching that didn't stop until she had destroyed at least two layers of her outer epidermis and her self-composure.   
  
"Are you quite finished?" inquired Joyce coolly when her daughter had ceased twitching and arching her back to get at those hard-to-reach places. "I really don't see what all this fuss is about. I wanted to get to know other people in this town and I wanted to spend some quality time with you. It's a perfect arrangement. We can both explore our creative sides while learning about each other."  
  
Buffy did not appear too impressed with this explanation as to why she had to give up two nights of her busy scheduled week to prance about making hand movements. "But Muuuummmm! I don't want to do it anymore!"  
  
Joyce decided to give up on the hope that one day her daughter would take a liking to the creative arts. She sighed. "Fine, Buffy. I'll just have to find someone else who can go with me. I just think you're wasting a good opportunity to get in touch with your creative side."   
  
With that, Buffy stomped off to her room, muttering something about her creative side and sharp wooden spikes. Joyce sat down at the table and patted Blakus on the lid. She did not however, realise that Blakus was a living entity and therefore thoroughly annoyed at the intrusion into his personal space. She began to make a honey sandwich, when to her surprise, Blakus snapped. I do not mean this in a literal way - he didn't physically fall apart. I mean that Blakus was sick and tired of being used and therefore decided to attack.   
  
As Joyce's spreading knife got closer to Blakus, he began to growl in the fiercest tone he could muster. Seeing as though he was a honeypot, this wasn't a very ferocious sound - more like a thick purring than anything - but Joyce certainly wasn't expecting it. With a shriek, she slowly backed away from Blakus, terror in her eyes.  
  
Although this may appear to be an extreme reaction to the honeypot growling at her, we must understand Joyce's position. In her childhood, Joyce had been the unfortunate victim of an attack by a rabid jam and cream scone, while on holiday in England. Ever since then, she had been wary of spreads. Therefore, it is not unreasonable that she should be scared by Blakus' growl.  
  
Buffy had been sulking in her room when she heard the scream. She hadn't told her mother the real reason that she was quitting the Mime Association. The real reason was much worse than her leotard causing her major discomfort (and this reason ranked fairly high in Buffy's priorities).   
  
No, Buffy was quitting the Association because of the other people in the group. One person to be precise: Spike. The sight of seeing Spike in a tight black leotard was bad enough, but having to team up with him in warm-ups was unbearable. Buffy found it very hard to keep a hold on the invisible kite string she was directing with Spike prancing about her in an invisible wind.   
  
Joyce, on the other hand had found it quite heartening that someone so renowned for their hatred towards anything artistic (unless you call the Sex Pistols artistic) was showing such enthusiasm.  
  
However, Buffy's feelings of self-pity were momentarily put aside when she heard the cry from the kitchen. Racing down to the kitchen, she surveyed the scene. It slowly began to sink in that her mother was being attacked by the honeypot.   
  
"Don't worry, Mum," Buffy called. "Just back away slowly. Don't let him sense your fear, or he'll attack." For what seemed like an age, Joyce backed away from the table. Her mind was screaming for her to run, yet she somehow managed to keep her body moving at a slow pace. Finally, the door was at her back. With a quick trot that she had learnt at her mime classes, Joyce raced through the doorway and slammed the door shut.  
  
"I don't know why he attacked," Joyce said shakily. "He just went crazy! I had no idea that he was going to do that or I would never have let him in the house."  
  
"Why would a honeypot wig like that?" Buffy mused. "I didn't even know honeypots could be possessed." Buffy picked up the phone and began dialling. "I'm going to call Giles. He'll know what to do."  
  
Giles was enjoying a honey crumpet when the phone rang. Grumbling about being interrupted whenever he was enjoying the few simple pleasures he had in life, he picked up the phone. An urgent voice reached him through the phone line.  
  
"Giles! It's Buffy. Look, something majorly weird is happening. My mother was making a sandwich and the honeypot attacked her!"  
  
Giles' ears pricked at hearing this. "The honeypot? Tell me what it looks like." A thought had sprung like a shoot into his brain and he made his way to the bookshelf, thankful of the telephone assistant who had persuaded him to buy the cordless phone rather than the novelty model in the shape of a cabbage.  
  
"Okay, umm...it looks like a pot...with honey in it. Maybe I should put my mother on."   
  
"I think that would be for the best," Giles sighed as Buffy handed the phone to Joyce. "Now Joyce, does this pot have a blue and red glaze with a pattern on the side of it?"  
  
"Why, yes it does. How did you know? I picked it up at an antique store on the main street. It was quite a bargain. I only paid..."  
  
The conversation was interrupted by Buffy telling the two to stop comparing antique store prices. Giles continued. "I think I know what the honeypot is. According to this book, an enchanted honeypot was created by a very powerful witch about two hundred years ago. She named it Blakus, in honour of her beloved toad. Now this honeypot was used to protect her pantry from thieves, but about a hundred years ago, the witch was killed and it's my guess that Blakus has somehow made it to Sunnydale and this is the pot that is causing you trouble."  
  
Buffy once again marvelled at the fact that Giles could find this stuff so quickly. Maybe he had been reading about it recently. *He really needs to be introduced to the magic of television* Buffy thought.  
  
"Now, don't touch Blakus. He can be incredibly dangerous. The last person to battle him was killed in a manner so terrible, so very horrible that I don't want to repeat what happened. I'll come over right away. You just look after Joyce." With that, Giles hung up the phone and raced into his car.   
  
Within ten minutes, Giles was standing outside the Summers' kitchen. "If we treat Blakus nicely, we may be able to calm him down enough to talk to him," Giles informed Buffy and Joyce as he slowly pushed the kitchen door open.  
  
Blakus looked up as the trio entered the room, a look of distrust across his ceramic face. "What do you want?" he growled in his thick honeyish voice.  
  
The conversation between the Watcher and the honeypot went on for a long time and I won't repeat it here, mainly because Giles got caught up in asking Blakus the particulars of what was in the witch's pantry. However, it is suffice to say that Blakus decided to halt his plan of world domination and join the fight against evil along with the rest of the Scooby Gang.  
  
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A week later, Joyce was walking home alone from her weekly Mime club workshop. This was not a particularly intelligent thing to do in Sunnydale, but Joyce was preoccupied with the different skills she had learnt during the lesson and hadn't noticed that it was dark and that there were likely to be some nasty creatures about. Seeing as Spike was a member of her class, Joyce should have realised that the lesson would finish long after dark but then, Joyce wasn't known for her large mental capacity.  
  
She was about two blocks from her house when the pattering started. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter! The ominous noise filled her with dread and she began to quicken her pace. She could feel it gaining on her and her sense of panic began to rise, until it was all she could do to stop from breaking into a bolt. Then the hand landed on her shoulder...  
  
"Spike!" Joyce gasped with relief. "You scared me!" Spike had not yet changed out of his leotard and was also still wearing his little black jiffies. This is what had been making the pitter-patter noise.  
  
"I'm sorry, Joyce," Spike smiled, "I just wanted to ask you about some of the things we covered in tonight's lesson." Joyce smiled at him. *He's so charming when he wants to be* thought Joyce. Then she realised that he had grabbed her arm.   
  
"What are you doing Spike?" she asked, quite alarmed at this stage. "I thought you wanted to talk about the invisible box!"  
  
"Not right now, Joyce. Right now, you're coming with me. If you're lucky, I'll put you in a real box and you can practise your box measurements." With that, Spike wrenched Joyce from the pavement and carried her off to the factory. He had planned this from the start of his lessons at the Mime Association. Waiting for the right moment was the hardest thing to do, but it looked like it was going to pay off now.   
  
He had a plan and it was a cunning one. He was going to use Joyce as bait in a trap that would force Buffy to sit through his full solo mime performance. The choreography had taken him months and he wasn't about to let all that hard work go to waste. It wouldn't matter that Angel didn't take his art seriously if Spike could have his very own audience.  
  
Back at the house, Buffy was beginning to sense that something was wrong. Her mother was half an hour late and that really wasn't like her. After pacing back and forth for another ten minutes wondering what to do, she was startled by a knock at the door. Buffy sprang to open it, but there was no one there. However, there was a note. It was written in blood and had a polaroid of Joyce tied to a chair staple to the back.   
  
Buffy hurriedly read the note. "I thought Spike was smarter than this," Buffy remarked. "He should know that if he ever touches my Mum, I'd turn him into dust and use him for fertiliser." Blakus grinned from the kitchen table before asking what her plan was.  
  
"Well firstly, let's get the troops. You call Willow and I'll call Giles. We're going to need as much help as we can get on this one." With that, Buffy picked up the phone and proceeded to wake Giles up from a pleasant dream about honey crumpets and someone named Adam Klaus.  
  
Fairly soon after that, the Scooby Gang stood outside the door to the factory where Spike was living. There were plenty of minions about, so it was clear that Spike wasn't taking any chances. This proved to be a problem for the gang. They were quickly surrounded and forced to surrender. Spike's minions led them to a stage and tied them all in seats.  
  
"What the hell is going on here?" Buffy shrieked as one of the vampires attempted to put a gag in her mouth.  
  
"Just a little something I call "A Cool Breeze Blows," came the answer as Spike stepped from behind the curtain, resplendent in his black leotard and jiffies. The truth slowly dawned on the captives. They were going to have to sit through mime. Mime performed by Spike. In that leotard.   
  
Each of the prisoners had the exact same thought: kill us now! (with the exception of Xander, who began to wonder where he could get a pair)  
  
There was one thing that Spike had not thought of in his apparently foolproof plan and that was Blakus. In the struggle, his minions had overlooked Blakus and so he was free to begin the rescue. As Spike launched into his performance and the prisoners slowly began to suffer deep psychological trauma, Blakus moved around the edges of the performance area. He made his way through half of the minions, biting their heads off, when Spike noticed him.   
  
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Spike shrieked. "You're ruining my performance!" Spike grabbed the SledgeHammer that he kept in his leotard (to impress the ladies) and began to smash Blakus to pieces. Try as he might, Blakus was no match for the SledgeHammer and was soon just a sticky mess covering Spike's leotard.  
  
The captives bowed their heads in grief. He had been a good friend and a loyal fighter, giving his life in the fight against mime. But now he was dead and there was no hope for them. The performance lasted all night - Spike was overjoyed at his mime debut.  
  
After his final encore, he decided to let them go. He could always catch them again when he wanted another audience. After all, they were all too psychologically damaged now to ever take him on.   
  
As the Scooby Gang wandered listlessly into the night he sat back in his chair and began to plan his next performance, his fingers steepled and his mind relishing the many possibilities.  
  
The End 


End file.
